EFFECTIVE SALES PROSPECTING TIP #1: Prospecting is not selling!

Probably the biggest mistake people make when they are prospecting is to confuse prospecting with selling.This mistake alone is why majority of prospecting calls fail. Prospecting call is not a sales call.  Have you ever met someone (or are you a person) who likes to get interrupted by a sales call? I haven’t met anyone who says ‘YES’ to this question.  So why is it that almost every cold call ends up in pitching a product or service within seconds?

In our highly successful sales prospecting program,  The Winning Formula, the first issue we tackle is to get the attendees to stop pitching their products and services.  But I tell you, this not easy.  We see people who have been thought for decades to pick up the phone and call total strangers and ask them if they want to hear about the products and services that they have never heard of, from a company they never known, by a person that they didn’t know existed a few seconds before.  What do you think is the likelihood of success here? You are right, almost nil.

Now let’s talk about what prospecting is.  Prospecting is simply asking for an opportunity for conversation, preferably at a future date, NOT NOW! THAT IS ALL.  I often draw parallel between prospecting and asking someone on a date.  When you are asking someone to go on a date you are not trying to close on the spot. You simply asking for an opportunity for a conversation to give both sides a chance to get to know a bit more about each other and see if there is enough common ground to carry on a relationship of some sort.

Prospecting is the same. You are asking someone to give you enough time for a conversation where each side can evaluate (qualify) the other side and see if there is enough common ground to start an engagement.

Now, I ask you to look at your current prospecting message/content/pitch.  If it starts by selling your brand, company, product before establishing some basic common ground and your success rate in converting them into leads is less than 5% I strongly suggest you consider changing your approach.

Do you want to avoid a year of uphill battle in filling your sales pipeline and struggle to close every deal in your thin pipeline? Contact us NOW for a 30-minute conversation with real impact on your business.

About the author:

Mark Ghaderi is an author, sales coach, mentor, entrepreneur and social selling evangelist with twenty five years of driving business results across the globe.

Vital Strategies Pte Ltd. Provides Revenue Growth Services to companies across the APAC region, helping organizations to grow their top line through digital transformation and improving sales execution.

contact us at: sales@vital-strategies.com